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Just got me thinking you know because I left my toothbrush next to my razor which are both next to my sink in my bathroom. If I was to pick of my razor there might have been a bit of mint on it and when I went to shave I would smell mint. When I picked up my toothbrush I almost expected it to cut my mouth because it had been sitting next to my razor and might have picked up some residual sharpness.

I was thinking about writing a story about that and other things actually. I have lots of good ideas for stories but no talent. I should hire a writer.

I didn't know that story. As I've said before the little I've read of Kafka seems to have done me up to now in "getting the jist" of what he's talking about but I should really read more because its good isnt it

I've read the complete works. Re-reading the Trial atm cause I'm doing an an essay about the movie a Clockwork Orange maybe. Don't quite know what to write about. State power/authority, dystopian setting/futures, proportions, sex, sado mashochism, degradation, theories of punishment, depiction of the law as unfathomable, self-serving, corrupt etc, they're both a sort of pilgrims proccess where he has to extricate guilt or mens rea or something (but josef k's is existential). I think K is bein punished for his lack of theology and not going in search of a higher philosophy (c.f "we're not concerned witha higher ethics" - the david cameron characer in cklockwork orange) and his subconcious latent guilt is manifesting itself because of his inauthenticity. I guess this is similar to Alex cause he submits himself to a vitiation of his own will. Idk cuase it's meant to be about the movies not the books. The book of the trial is waay better than the movie (it's pretty crap compared to Welle's other movies even though he thought it was his best) whereas I prefer Kubrick to Burgess.

I have lots of short story ideas but I just give them to Tom and he bashes them out in half an hour.ok

I think I might write a radio 4 afternoon play called "out of the fire, into the frying pan" based on what happened to me today when I was going to eat a pizza for dinner (which you cook in a (wood) fire(d oven)) but then somebody offered me some parmigianna (which is cooked i bit in a pan) instead. It's got legs.

3d printing is pretty interesting. You could write a short sotry with Prince Charles as the protagonist (or the toothbrush as the protagonist) where the quality of sharpness seems to transfered to the toothbrush, in the style of Flann O'Brien.

I guess what I'm trying to say, is that on some molecular level im sure that the quality of 'sharpness' could spread out from its origin. The ability to recognise and decode the stimulus does not exist (for good reason), such it fails to elicit a response. Such, it might as well not exist.

It could though thats the thing. A molecule could theoretically be altered by its integration in an object with certain properties (sharpness) that have been validated by their use towards a functionally related end. But this is going down to changes at the atomic level and only works on if we have receptors able to detect changes at such a sensitive level. Which would of course be nuts.

Im chatting pure and utter rubs.

I just dont want to write about cancer prognosis with extent of intratumoral hypoxia :(

how molecules (or, on a larger scale, planes/surfaces/whatever) are arranged. Smell and taste are properties which result from the structure of individual molecules and their interaction with receptors in your nose/tongue.

Sharpness is a property of the arrangement of multiple molecules. Smell and taste are properties which are dependent on the structure of individual molecules. Hence why smells and tastes are transferable but sharpness (except when referring to taste or smells!) is not.

You engineered a molecular engine or machine which included a receptor which, on binding of an agonist, induced a conformational change in the secondary/tertiary/quaternary structure of the molecular machine such that it became sharp. If you designed the receptor to be activated by a specific odour compound, then you could induce a transfer of sharpness from a sharp substance coated with a smelly material to an blunt, odourless object.

just wondering if an object and its sharpness was categorised as something QUOTE Ding an sich UNQUOTE and not as it appears in the form of a sensory perception in our mind?

Or if yes_ psychosomatically "sensed" or had a cognitive experience having equivalent effect to the experience of sharpness within the toothbrush [whether or not the physical property of sharpness was indeed present in the toothbrush being immaterial], would he be sensibly intuiting it? So would this not be the same sort of epistemological leap as if he was experiencing the reality of the sharpness of the razor itself?????????????

But if you're going to have any sort of discussion about the transmittance of properties between two objects then you kind of have to take it as a given that the discussion is limited to situations in which your perceptions are objectively accurate within the context of the conversation. Else you're either talking about synesthesia - a cool enough topic in its own right - or sinking to the level of "BUT GOD CAN MAKE IT HAPPEN THAT WAY" in a discussion of Creationism.

... engineered a molecular engine or machine which included a receptor which, on binding of an agonist, induced a conformational change in the secondary/tertiary/quaternary structure of the molecular machine such that it became sharp. If you designed the receptor to be activated by a specific odour compound, then you could induce a transfer of sharpness from a sharp substance coated with a smelly material to an blunt, odourless object...

So, if the toothbrush has the phenomenal character of sharpness, it is sharp.

Fine.

But when we examine the toothbrush, it turns out not to be sharp. But the razor is.

So the toothbrush has the phenomenal character of sharpness. The razor has the phenomenal character of sharpness AND seems like we can judgement it to be genuinely sharp.

Now, if we want to look further than this, we will find neither of them are really sharp because the toothbrush is only sharp insofar as it has the phenomenal character of sharpness and the razor is only sharp insofar as it has the phenomenal character of sharpness and it can be judged to be sharp due to other characteristics we can locate in it (such as, the sharpness of its blade).

Now we could say, 'sharpness = having a sharp blade' (or sharp edge, or whatever, some physical sharp characteristic). But this is only one definition of sharp. We've already seen that the toothbrush (despite not being physically sharp), can feel sharp.

So what does sharpness consist in?

I think the answer is: that we can apply our concept of sharpness to something.

But we can only do this as far as our appearances are concerned! (i.e. if some object appears sharp to us, in whatever sense, phenomenal or physical or whatever).

If you associated the razor with sharpness, it could still be transferred to your toothbrush I guess.

You might feel like your toothbrush was going to be sharp but know it wasn't really, I suppose... that's quite a clumsy way of putting this. I mean, you might do this or feel the sharpness of the toothbrush but know it wasn't sharp... I think in this case you do 'know' it isn't sharp, but you also know it feels sharp. It depends how strong a notion of knowing we want to be committed to (I'd rather be committed to a very weak notion of knowing where knowing is just a 'being-aware x is the case', where we understanding the being-aware to not preclude its own contradiction, so we could be aware of x, and be aware of y, but also know that if x, then not y. I don't have a problem with this, I think its just a fact of our everyday experience, though obviously a lot of thinkers would want to avoid it.)

a razor's sharp because it cuts things. Sharp is a linguistic term for things that cut things well, with no fixed definition. Generally, things that cut things well are called sharp. There is no meaning beyond human interpretation of sense data.

which isn't that far from what my original post could relate to if it wasn't you know just meant to be a little bit funny and maybe a little more abstract from "what do you do when you are in your office and your boss is a prick" threads that are on here all the time

we bear the same burden. Did you apply for a philosophy degree under the misapprehension that it would be exciting? Did you already think that what we call "philosophy" in natural language was just a word for the act of thinking which enriches? Did you arrive to find that somebody had imposed regulations, academia and tradition on what you thought would let your imagination run wild as it is exposed to things you have never before experience?
this was our pretension and this is our burden.

I am drunk because i do joint honours in french and it costs £1.50 for a bottle of wine here.

i took it at a level and found it alright in places, applied for ppe last year and got rejected everywhere for not doing maths, so just thought it would be cool to take economics out of the equation and apply for pp. Realised before i started uni that this wasnt at all what i wanted, and wished i'd applied for straight politics. Much prefer logically structured analytical thinking to the sort of creative thinking stuff thats in this thread. Probably just cos i cant do it, idk.

cos having discussions that play with concepts in abstract terms, whilst having no time for staid old linguistic convention or pesky scientific principles, is FUN. when no one can ever be wrong, what's not to love?